Wheelbarrows are used for the manual transport of small loads. Conventional wheelbarrows have rigid buckets which are fixed in place in a frame which rests on an anterior wheel and two posterior legs. The frame consists of two long handles which are attached directly or indirectly to an axle upon which the wheel rotates. A worker lifts the back end of the handles, thus raising the legs and, balancing the wheelbarrow on the single wheel, wheels the load to its destination.
The rigid bucket causes the wheelbarrow to take up space when the wheelbarrow is stored. In a cramped garage or tool shed this is a problem which has been addressed with the introduction of folding wheelbarrows. Most of the folding wheelbarrows introduced to date construct the bucket out of rigid folding panels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,757 issued to Magyar, for a FOLD-UP WHEELBARROW introduced a bucket made of a plurality of sheet-like panels. The panels are made of materials such as nylon, reinforced plastic, and canvas. One end of each of the elongated members, or handles, is connected directly to the axle of the wheel and each handle pivots at that end to approximate the other handle for storage. A number of manoeuvres are required to fold the frame.